“You mean you know these girls?”
Tren nodded, even as he was looking the other twin over. She was not in as good as shape as her better. Her ankle had been twisted fairly badly, but more than that, she seemed even sicker than the last time they had met. It might have been just the lights, but she was paler than before, were that possible. Her fairy like complexion was part of her allure and he knew it. He felt the eyes of the group on him, as he took special care not to injure her further while he was looking her over.
He cut a sharp look that swung at everyone in the room like a stiletto.
“Well don’t just stand there. Somebody get me some bandages so I can shore this girl’s ankle up.”
Bryon nodded and started to dig through the first aid pile they had collected from all around the store. Jace rounded the corner last and with his finger shushed them all.
“They can still hear us inside guys. Let’s keep the noise to zilch until they all wander off.” Everyone acquiesced with a nod. Only Parker did so under duress, crossing her arms in disgust.
Jace returned to a point just before he could be seen by the Zom’s scratching at the glass, but just out of sight. He kept this vigil for the better part of an hour, when the uninvited followers heard the sounds of a tripped car alarm further down the street. He himself only heard it vaguely, and it made him thoughtful as he saw the herd pour swaggeringly out of the parking lot. The alarm could not have been that much louder outside. Jace realized that their hearing might even be better than his own. He remember the glazed looks, the broken mirrors they had for eyes. Maybe their eyesight left much to be desired and their other senses were heightened to make up for it. One thing was a surety. Loud noises drew them to investigate whether there was a meat to be found, and there were no vegetarians to be counted among the walkers.
Jace waited a few more moments before returning to the group to give the all clear. Parker was still heated. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic in her new surroundings. The situation reminded her of the story of Anne Frank, hiding in her secret room. Forced into silence for fear of the Nazi search parties finding her, and committing unmentionable horrors to her before gifting her a bullet to the head. Parker never had reason to identify with the girl in the diary. Until now. In this place the little girl’s fears were her own. The horror and atrocities were just as real, if not greater and poor Anne’s. She shifted her attention to the oaf.
“Touch me again with those tree trunks you call hands and I will shank you,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
Rhyce raised his hands up in mock ignorance and just smiled.
“Don’t worry, girl. You are with friends. None of us are gonna hurt you,” said Charlie. Fayte ran up to the healthy twin and gave her a scan. Parker was not much for kids, and merely gave her a standoffish look. Fayte read this for what it was, and walked back over to Byron. She had found no new friend with her.
“So, guys. What happened?” asked Charlie.
Tren stepped back up as spokesperson. He were about a quarter mile up the stretch when these two got caught up in a herd on their little moped. There was enough of them to slow them up. We had managed to get there just in time before the biting began.
“You guys can leave whenever you want. This ain’t no hostage situation. Whenever you are all healed up, be my guest. Take off. But I don’t recommend it. You two are more than welcome to stay as long as you want.”
Phoenix nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Charlie turned back to Parker and smiled. “Besides. I was beginning to feel a little outnumbered.” She tipped her chin up at the boys. “Be nice to have a little more estrogen in here to balance things out a bit.
Parker nodded. She had just seen first-hand how well they handled an undead herd on their own. What if the boys had been someone else? What if they had never met? There was no guarantee that they would have helped them. Perhaps there was more to these guys than she had initially thought. She was fiercely independent. Even when her life had once hit the skids, she refused to take handouts from anyone. This Charlie seemed to be cut of the same cloth, but something had convinced her that joining up with these fools was a good idea. It was something that she did not have to mull over for very long. Obviously ‘strength in numbers’ was the rule here, and in that she was severely lacking.
“You have any kind of initiation to this little gang of yours?” Parker smiled.
Charlie had not had the opportunity to think that far yet. Too much was happening too fast. She had gone from solo to a merry band of eleven so fast it made her head spin. Her look turned thoughtful.
“I think we have all been initiated enough.”
“Well, those fuckers don’t seem to think so.”
“Language, missy.” She nodded over to the little girl.
“So, there ARE rules here.”
“Just the ones concerning common courtesy, and the ones that keep us breathing,” replied Charlie.
That sounded good enough to Parker.
“Okay. We stay.” She nodded in agreement. “For now.”
“Good. But we aren’t staying long. We already agreed as a group that we need get moving again. Find a better place to hole up.
“What about my sis and her ankle?”
Callen chimed in. “We spotted a van just before we ran into the girls again. Thought it looked promising. She won’t have to walk if we can get to it and get it back here. Might take some doing though.
Charlie pursed her lips in thought. “Let’s give the walkers some time to thin out.” She waved Byron over to her. “Do we have enough supplies to hold us out for a couple more days?”
Bryon did a quick head count. “If we go easy, we might have enough to last the week.”
“Phoenix doesn’t eat much. Especially with her being sick.” Parker offered.
“Yeah. I pretty much eat like a bird.” Phoenix giggled weakly at her own joke then gasped in pain as Tren finished tightening the last of wounds of gauze around her ankle.
“Please don’t mention birds,” Charlie said. She shook her head in disgust. She knew that she would not even be able to look at a parakeet the same way ever again.
“What’s wrong with birds? I like birds.” Rhyce’s weak attempt at contributing a verse to the conversation only served to make Charlie roll her eyes at him.
“Zombie birds.” She felt that was all she needed to say.
Rhyce did not even try to hide his surprise.
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. A whole flock of ‘em.”
“What the hell. How did you get away from them?”
“I didn’t. I got real lucky. Nose-dived into a car and they kill themselves trying to get to me. Woody Woodpecker style.”
“Whoa…”
“They were all bouncing off the car like pinballs. I got out and, poured out some gas, and lit the ones that were still moving on fire. None of them have followed me since.”
Rhyce motioned over to Callen. “Dude. I think this chick just added a page to OUR book.”
Callen nodded, but he had already pulled his tablet out and was already halfway done typing in what he had just heard.
“Thanks for letting us know,” Tren said. “That is something we have not run into yet. Not sure how we would have handled something like that.”
Cross walked out from where he was working, clutching something sliver in his hands. He held it up with the pride of a mother who had just knitted a new baby blanket.
“Hey Fayte. I made somethin’ for ya.”
Fayte looked up from another chess board game she had just set. Her eyes instantly grew wide in recognition of what had been crafted for her.
“My own armor!” She ran up to him and he dropped his creation into her waiting hands. Cross had taken a hoodie, that he had estimated to be her size, and carefully arranged duct tape around in several layers on the outside. Even the hood was carefully taped and situated with each of the strips rolling over the
inside.
“Duct tape. 21st century chain mail.” Cross chuckled to himself.
“Will this protect me?” Fayte asked the question, but she had already analyzed the potential of its protective abilities. She was quite impressed with how clever he was to come up with this idea on his own. Perhaps these boys were not as dim-witted as she had initially thought.
Cross ripped off a couple of pieces of the tape and folded them over on themselves. He handed the strip to Fayte.
“Try to bite through this.”
Fayte obliged, but only to humor the boy. She barely made teeth marks in the tape, and there was no breaking through. Cross’s idea was sound.
Cross smiled. “I chose the hoodie because you can pulled the strings closed over your head and drop into a ball. Your own personal turtle mode. It will buy you some time for us to get to you if the zombies get to you first.”
“You are a smart man Cross.” Fayte offered.
Charlie cleared her throat and everyone looked up.
“Looks like you’ve got a new job now.”
Cross’s face took a small questioning step back.
“You are our new armorer. We are all going to need this kind of protection.”
Cross nodded. “I might have enough tape here to do us up all some hoodies. But eventually we are gonna want to do the same thing for our lower parts too. Zombies love going for the legs and ankles. One bite in the right spot and you’re officially dropped. Game over. When we can find another stash of tape, I’ll be more than happy to finish the job.
“Go ahead and finish Fayte’s armor up. She is the most vulnerable of us all. She needs it all now. If that uses up some tape for one of us, that is fine. If anything, I’ll go without. Nothing matters more than her safety,” finished Charlie.
“So, try it on. Let’s see how well this thing works,” said Cross.
He helped her slip it on over her head. It was surprisingly comfortable, as the inside of the hoodie had been left alone for the most part. It still moved fairly well with the wearer, offering some give to the fabric without constricting her movement. She adored her new faux-armor, and knew that it would indeed protect her. Fayte felt that in the end it was still missing something.
“What about Penny, my Penguin? He needs to be protected too.” Fayte figured there was no way he was going to be able to figure this one out.
“I am way ahead of you,” he replied.
From behind his back he pulled out some strange mechanism, with was made up of several belts and the face bars of what looked like a lacrosse helmet. He slipped it over her head and cinched the belts up to so that the bars formed a little basket in front of her chest. He walked over to where she had left her stuffed Penguin in her tent and fished it out for her. Like the finishing touches on a cake, Penny was inserted into his new home.
Charlie shook her head at these shenanigans, but knew that the basket was pulling double duty as extra armor. This man really put some thought into his design.
“So…Whatcha think?” Cross posed in front of his new creation, like a fashion designer admiring the newest creation on his model. He smiled. It was Doctor Frankenstein enjoying his monsters first breaths.
Fayte jumped on him and hugged him. The basket hit him so hard in his gut, his own breath was knocked out of him.
Charlie smiled and let it hang for only a moment, before looking serious back at Cross.
“How fast can you finish the rest?”
“Oh, I think with a bit of help,” he looked over to his brothers-in-arms, “I think we can be ready in two days.”
Jace got up quietly and walked away. He rubbed his shaking hand in pain for a moment before ducking into his tent. Charlie’s gaze followed him sadly until he disappeared.
He had been weighing heavily on her mind lately. She could not help but notice how he tended to crowd her every chance that he got. Each time he would sneak closer and closer. He was testing her waters, seeing how far he could swim, before getting to close and popping her personal bubble.
This was going to be a long two days. She knew, despite how badly she felt for him and his situation that soon there was going to have to be a reckoning. She was going to have to put him in his place in a not so nice way. Charlie was dreading that moment, and curious as to why she was feeling so damn guilty about it.
The Junction City Boys all huddled around the Coleman. Each had their own different colored cups. Charlie took her turn to brew coffee twice to make sure there was enough caffeine to go around. This was going to be a long meeting. The first of many, Charlie thought.
“But our expertise is finding ways of killing dumb zombies. As long as we are on our guard, it’s pretty much child’s play. This guy is on a whole other level,” Tren started.
“Yeah, zombies are supposed to be dumb. This guy takes the cake,” mirrored Rhyce.
“We’ve already established that ya brute.”
Charlie stood and leaned against the end cap sipping her coffee. She tried to rub the tiredness out of her eyes, hiding the fact that she had been rolling them. These guys were pretty smart at outsmarting the undead and preparing themselves, at least so far. You think that the geeks of the group could come up with a decent plan of attack. By herself, she would have been content to just leave well enough alone be done with it. Now, with the entire group together, they have too much too lose.
“This guy is not someone we can take out head on. There is no telling what kind of weapons he has or what he could throw at us.”
Callen started singing the chorus of “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz, and finished with, “And this guy has one.” He started rubbing his temples. He was too stressed to think of a best case scenario.
“Apparently this guy has several. He eats them,” offered Byron.
“Yeah, who’d of thunk we’d end up fighting some serial killer on top of everything else.”
Rhyce giggled. “Huh, huh. Cereal.”
“Jesus, Rhyce! This is serious!” yelled Cross.
“Just trying to light the mood bro.”
These guys were growing on Charlie. They were like the younger brothers she never had. They would never miss a chance to slide that joke in. They were truly the blood brothers they professed to be. And that gave her an idea.
“Well, whatever we plan we must be in it to win it. Go big or go home. All for one and one for all.” She pulled herself off of the wall and kneeled between the twins, joining the circle. She reached into her front pocket and produced a small flip knife with a utility blade on it. All eyes were on her as she pressed the blade down her thumb. Blood came up and started running down her hand. She raised her thumb to the center of the group and she waited, eyeballing the rest.
“Boys. It’s time to re-up your blood vows.”
“Now that is the type of hardcore shit I am talkin’ ‘bout!” Rhyce quickly produced his own knife, make a nick in his own thumb and brought it to the center of their circle. The blade was passed to Cross, and then to the brothers who all followed suit. Byron was next and followed suit without even so much as a tremor of hesitation. Then it was Jace who stepped up at the 12 o’clock position holding his hand out.
“Pass me the knife.”
The quiet twin passed it obligingly, amazed at this turn of events.
Jace spoke even as he made his ritual cut. “If we are going to survive, we all need to be in this together. I for one am down.” He looked Charlie steady in the eyes or a moment and brought his thumb into the circle.
“I’m not one for for knives, so…” a meek voice rose up from behind Jace. Ellie had awoken from her slumber, and had caught on. Not wanting to be left out, she reached down in to the box of toothpicks that was lying next to the grill. She stabbed the tip of her finger with one and a dot of blood come up with it.
Each of them resigned to the lot they were thrown into. Against all odds, forsaking the fates that had been assigned to them.
“What about me?” the youngest of th
e group came up to the 6 o’clock position of the circle.
“Oh, baby I thought you were asleep.” Charlie tried to use her motherly voice. Fayte would have none of it. She had been awake the whole time. She had heard everything. Not much was going to get past this little girl.
“You weren’t planning on leaving me out of this, were you?” Her face was in point blank accusation mode.
“Baby…” Charlie began.
Before she could finish Fayte snatched the knife out of Jace’s hands and sliced across he own thumb, bringing forth blood.
The collective gasp from the group could only be highlighted by what Rhyce decided to say next.
“I changed my mind. THAT is the most badass thing I have ever seen.”
Fayte brought forth her thumb to the circle and made a defiant face. Charlie nodded. This girl. She keeps surprising me. She did not now that the ultimate surprise was yet to come.
They each pressed their thumbs together in the circle. This rag-tag assembly of zombie hunters in perfect solidarity. They held it there and marinated in the significance of an act that they refused to take lightly.
Now, all they needed was a plan.
Karma’s a BITCH.
Those really aren’t words a seven year old should say. But that was before. Lately that seems to be all I hear from the group.
I was taught that everything happens for a reason. Whether it be good or bad. By technology or by the grace of God. If it needs to happen it will. Nothing on this earth can stop fate. Fate. It’s funny how I was named after something so certain. Just as this world’s fate cannot be stopped, neither can I.
Ellie says it’s Mother Nature’s way of righting the wrongs done to her over hundreds of years. And every time Charlie talks over her stating that it’s our punishment to survive alone like this. Maybe it’s someone’s punishment but not ours. We are all just kids in the end.
This talk has been done almost every night since Jace and Ellie joined us, then it progressed into a heated nightly debate when the Junction City Boys arrived. More questions would boggle our minds, forcing us to fall into a depressed state because the answer to the three letter word was still so elusive.
Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles Page 26